The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.1AE standard is the media access control (MAC) security standard, commonly referred to as MACsec. MACsec defines connectionless data confidentiality and integrity for media access independent protocols. MACsec defines protocols to implement security requirements for protecting data traversing networks, such as Ethernets and local area networks (LANs). The MACsec infrastructure may allow for data confidentiality, data integrity, and data origin authentication. For example, MACsec may allow for unauthorized LAN connections to be identified and excluded from communication within the network.
The device that includes the MACsec function block may be a device from the Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model (OSI model). The lowest three layers of the devices from the OSI model include the physical layer, the data link layer, and the network layer. The physical layer defines electrical and physical specifications for devices, including a relationship between a device and a physical medium. The data link layer provides for the transfer of data between network entities and error correction. The network layer provides for the transfer of variable length data from a source to a destination via one or more networks. The MACsec, when implemented into conventional networks performing under Clause 22 of the IEEE 802.3AE standard, is implemented on either the data link layer and/or on the network layer of the devices from the OSI model. Such devices include switches and/or network controllers. Implementing the MACsec into the physical layer (PHY requires replacing the existing hardware of the network and also sacrifices performance in terms of throughput and latency.